Increase of 2.8 cents a gallon will begin Jan. 1 -- the biggest one-time jump in nearly 20 years, the N.C. Department of Revenue told the Observer Thursday. The latest tax increase, to 29.9 cents a gallon, will push North Carolina from having the nation's eighth-highest state gas tax to the sixth. "They're imposing a higher tax when the pain will be getting worse," said Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America. Republican state lawmakers proposed capping the gas tax at 24.6 cents to ease the pain of pump prices that passed $3 after Hurricanes Katrina and...